Cincinnati: A Song of Ourselves

On January 2, 2018 a group of poets braved the bitter cold to perform a choral reading of our poem for the City as the new Cincinnati City Council was sworn in. On behalf of Cincinnati’s poets, I offer you:

Cincinnati: A Song of Ourselves

By some calculations,
fifty-two equals one
city, seven hills and
the ever-rivering lines of the Ohio
to bound it.
This city.
One that chose long ago to outgrow itself.
Cut the hill, see the western shadowed buildings
pulsing urgent in the city street pentameter
above a hidden unfinished underground
of metal and glass, arteries, entrails,
all sorts of plumbing, rivers and viaducts,ad infinitum.

Voting with your mouth is useful
in the process of the seven hungers,
but in the shadow of heavy tannéd hill-folds,
lines grow longer, queued for a light from the West,
from some reborn magi of the deep pockets.
Each empty stare is a warning, and a way to begin.
Each tattered leaf, a scrap of time
you can never put back on the tree.
Instead of pretending to be colorblind,
open your eyes to the rainbow of color in this city,
like an advent calendar,
a pleasant surprise
hidden behind each window.
Feed the hungry, leave the gleanings,
open doors, embrace the ragged and wealthy and rough hewn
to make a resting place for all
who wish to call us home.
Do not let our smallness hem you in.

“I drag my feet unintentionally / this is to say / I am not a broom
but a city of stars illuminated by strangers,
welcomed by arts and parks and poems and outstretched arms.
The pride of rainbow banners point the way
to a city for all.”

And if all art is political,
we’ve been given a lot to work with.
The OSU/U-M rivalry
can’t begin to rival the Skyline/Gold Star one.
And in the neighborhood murdered by medicine,
giant buildings saunter
where our houses once stood still
and hugged us.

With just enough of the year left to plant daffodils,
winter cold reminds us
that energy is made of ice and glass, too.
And if we breathe, will we stoke the fire, or blow it out?

I am here.
You are here.
We don’t trust each other,
not as lungs go,
but someone was god-like and left us no choice.
(Move thru it, move thru it—that’s the only way out.)
And so, a blessing on us,
a goodnight Tiara shimmering in the dark above
one city,
ours,
spread among hills and vales,
villes and gates, parks and woods and sides
and dales and heights:May the exquisite tones and turns of our words wear nothing more than small hills, river-licked;contain the lands and bodies of water we cross;form a tight braid to root us in kindness, graceand joy for all we are,for all we hope to be.